A panel of judges in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has revised its year-old decision to reverse a lower court’s ruling that effectively dismissed the claim of a University of Georgia student, who alleged that the school violated Title IX because it did not do enough to prevent an alleged rape by some of the school’s student athletes.
The appeals court, citing additional reasons for its original decision, found some of the school officials in the case to be “deliberately indifferent” to an established pattern of sexual harassment exhibited by certain male student athletes.
The incident leading to the litigation occurred in January 2002 when University of Georgia basketball teammates Tony Cole and Steven Thomas as well as football player Brandon Williams allegedly raped plaintiff Tiffany Williams in a UGA dorm room.
Criminal charges were filed against the alleged assailants. Brandon Williams was found not guilty, while the charges against Cole and Thomas were subsequently dropped.
Williams then filed a civil suit, naming the university as well as UGA President Michael Adams, then-athletic director Vince Dooley and former basketball coach Jim Harrick as defendants.
Among other things, Williams claimed that the defendants were personally involved in recruiting and admitting Cole even though they knew he previously had disciplinary and criminal problems, particularly those involving harassment of women, at other colleges. Further, she argued that the university’s policies violated Title IX, and that the failure of the university to take appropriate remedial actions led to her withdrawal from the university.
The defendants moved for summary judgment, a motion that was granted by a District Judge Charles A. Pannell, who wrote that Williams “has set forth no facts to indicate that she has been treated differently than male students, who were harassed by other students. (She) does not allege in either her initial complaint or in its amendments that male victims of student-on-student harassment were treated differently than female victims of student-on-student harassment.”
The judge also disagreed that the university’s remedial actions were lacking, writing that he did “not find that the university’s response was clearly unreasonable under the circumstances.”
Finally, he concluded that the plaintiff’s claims that the university’s inaction resulted in her withdrawal to be dubious. “(Her) complaint indicates that she withdrew almost immediately after the assault,” he wrote. “Therefore, it is probable that she withdrew before action could be taken against her assailants.”
Williams raised four issues on appeal – whether the district court erred in: (1) denying her motion to amend her complaint; (2) dismissing her Title IX claims; (3) dismissing her § 1983 claims; and (4) dismissing her claim for injunctive relief.
On the first issue, the appeals court agreed with the plaintiff that the district court “lacked the discretion to make that determination at that time” and that Williams “had the right to amend her complaint as a matter of course.”
Turning to the second item, the appeals court restated the district judge’s rationale that “Williams’s claims failed because she was unable to meet the deliberate indifference requirement of the Title IX cause of action.”
However, the appeals court reasoned that “the facts alleged in this case are extreme. According to the amended complaint, which we take as true for present purposes, UGA and UGAA officials actively recruited and admitted Cole despite his past serious sexual misconduct. Once Cole was a student-athlete at UGA and placed in a dormitory, the defendants’ did not supervise or even counsel him against sexual harassment or other sexual misconduct. Even after the rape and assault, which Cole orchestrated, the defendants failed for months to remove Cole and the other attackers from the university. It is likely that this failure prevented Williams from returning to the university to continue her education.
“We hold that these extreme facts are sufficient to state a claim under Title IX.”
The third issue on appeal involved the district court’s dismissal of Williams’s § 1983 claims against Adams, Harrick, and Dooley, as individuals and in their official capacities, and against the Board of Regents and UGA.
The appeals court agreed with the district judge’s rationale for dismissing Williams’s first § 1983 claim against Adams, Harrick, and Dooley as individuals “because a plaintiff cannot assert a § 1983 action based on a violation of Title IX.” Similarly, it agreed with the lower court that the defendants have qualified immunity.
Turning to the Section 1983 claims against UGA and the Board of Regents, the appeals court wrote that the defendants were state actors and that Congress has not abrogated states’ immunity from § 1983 suits. Miller v. King, 384 F.3d 1248, 1259-60 (11th Cir. 2004). Nor has UGA or the Board of Regents waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity. Therefore, the Eleventh Amendment bars Williams’s § 1983 claims against UGA and the Board of Regents.
Finally, Williams asserts that the district court erred in dismissing her claim for injunctive relief that she requested in her initial complaint and expanded upon in her first amended complaint. The appeals court affirmed this decision, noting that Williams “lacked standing to pursue injunctive relief because the threat of future harm to Williams and other students is merely conjectural.”
Tiffany Williams v. Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia et al.; 11th Cir.; No. 04-13800, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 2945; 2/9/07
